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Arcjec Voorat
Arcjec Voorat, also known by his Skorpe handle , is one of the main characters in the webcomic Vast Error. His associated alchemic sigil is Magnesium; however, it is heavily modified from its original form. Arcjec's symbol is the only featured character symbol that is not close to an exact replica of its real alchemical counterpart. He has messy, medium-length hair, and his horns are blocky cones with a pointed, curling protrusion at the apex of each one. His blood has been notably referred to as 'corn syrup' by the cast, and appears to be a 'mixture' of normal Repitonian bronze blood and lime blood. This blood type and Arcjec's unique sigil were passed down to him by his Ancestor, whose blood was modified after his attempted suicide by hanging and subsequent revival by The Vivifier during The Renaissance. He was the first troll introduced and the first troll to enter the game. Biography Six Sweeps Arcjec wasn't always so depressed and sullen. Prior to the tumultuous end to his relationship with Taz, he was apparently much more outgoing and enthusiastic, if somewhat naive. He used to be interested in comic books and superheroes as well as drawing, 2D animation and scrapbooking, evidenced by the posters on his wall, drawing tablet and the book on top of his refrigerator. He also seemed to be very interested in (now outdated) SBVRPRPG tournaments, which allowed him to be a little more knowledgeable in how The Game should function. He used to play these games with Laivan and Calder. Pre-game The first thing Arcjec is seen doing on the night of The Game is replying to a message from Ellsee, who worries that she is needy and unlikable. He offers the insecure troll an attempt at advice but accidentally turns the conversation around to be about him. Ellsee, amused but touched at him trying to be helpful despite being very poorly equipped to do so, decides that she will finally introduce herself to him and explain their deeper connection. She goes to his hive and tries to get his attention from his respiteblock's window by throwing a rock at it. The sight of a strange troll trying to get his attention immediately terrifies Arcjec and he turns away in shock and freaks out before being invited to play a game of Anthropormuncipality by Laivan with him and Murrit. Arcjec refuses and tells Laivan to try and remember him fondly if he gets killed. He then tries to get a better look at the now long gone mysterious troll outside his hive but ends up falling out his second-floor window, into the mud and passing out. Arcjec proceeds to have a cryptic dream where he is standing in a shapeless void colored in static noise. In this dream, he briefly sees White Noise before he abruptly awakens on the floor of his room with his lusus now awake and watching over him. He is surrounded by the many crumpled up drawings of strange symbols he makes in his sleep; something that has been a regular occurrence for Arcjec for much of his life. He sees that this time has been no exception: the most recent paper has The Game's symbol crudely drawn on it along with the phrase: 'It's the only way.' Meanwhile on Prospit, Laivan visits Arcjec's dream self, delivering a Prospitian newspaper as he's done hundreds of times before and wishing Arcjec that wake up soon. Laivan wonders if -- had Arcjec had woken up on Prospit sooner -- he might have been a little happier and gives a reassuring pap to the sleeping dreamself. The dreamself glitches out momentarily, and briefly reverts to his younger, happier former self. Laivan is freaked out by this. During Arcjec's nap, Murrit sends out a mass-memo to all the trolls (except Ellsee) pertaining to The Game and the events surrounding it. Additionally, after the flower pod in the Frog Temple opens, The Game is suddenly installed on all the troll's main computers. Shortly after waking up, Arcjec finds himself accosted by Taz, who had been unceremoniously thrust into the game alongside Arcjec (and had apparently been coerced into speaking to Arcjec by Murrit, to her immense displeasure). Taz uses the game's cursor to drag Arcjec to his desk and look at his computer. The former friends bicker for some time before Taz forces Arcjec to look at the reality of the situation -- literally. When Arcjec dismisses Murrit's memo as an elaborate prank done by the sea-dweller, Taz retaliates by forcing him to look out his window and look at the meteor hurtling towards his hive. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Arcjec agrees to work with Taz, despite her constant antagonism and berating of Arcjec. The two reach an uneasy truce (although mutually agree to avoid each other once everything is said and done) and begin working to unravel the secrets of The Game. Arcjec realizes that the symbols he has been writing in his sleep since he was young are connected to the game. After a few spats, he begins inputting the symbols into the game window, while Taz inputs a set of codes she received from Murrit's memo. This allows Taz access to a set of objects to place outside of Arcjecs hive. Proceeding there, Taz places a series of pillars and an archway around Arcjec's hive, and a mysterious chest in Arcjec's respiteblock. Arcjec opens the chest, which unleashes a powerful gust of wind which sends him hurtling out of his room and destroying the wall in the process. The wind blows Arcjec right in front of the archway, which is activated into some sort of portal. Taz uses the game cursor to pull Arcjec into the portal. After his entry, the pillars around Arcjec's hive divert the oncoming meteor away from his hive into Skaia, preventing its complete destruction. During the game Arcjec awakes on a gray platform inscribed with the Breath symbol, floating in a blank, stark white void. The powerful winds seen during Arcjec's entry appears once again, and in a powerful convergence of wind, it transforms before Arcjec into the denizen of Breath, Zehanpuryu. Arcjec -- terrified and bewildered after the mayhem that led up to his entrance into the game -- laughs hysterically at the sight of his denizen, which the denizen imitates awkwardly. After some back and forth between the two and after Arcjec calms down slightly, Zehanpuryu introduces Arcjec to the game and its purpose, pledging himself as Arcjec's guide. Stating that Arcjec is the Bard of Breath, he beckons the Bard to find him again when he is stronger. He inserts himself within the Breath platform and changes the blank planet around them into the newly formed Land of Mirage and Monochrome. As Arcjec looks around his new surroundings, he is approached by one of the planet's consorts: a bright, vibrant snake (both in personality and in appearance) who tells Arcjec to use the terminal that just appeared next to the denizen platform. The terminal allows Arcjec to access his game UI and Skorpe where he finds that he is being messaged by Taz and Ellsee. Wishing to avoid Taz, he only answers Ellsee, who had just seen a meteor hurtling towards his hive only to disappear and instead found discovered his damaged -- but otherwise intact -- hive. The two quickly catch up before Ellsee is forced to admit that she knows more than she's previously let on and that she's been near Arcjec's hive. When Arcjec mentions the codes he used for the game, Ellsee mentions she's seen them in a book that she has had her whole life and is now finally realizing that they have been a fixture in her life as well. After telling Ellsee to meet up with him when things are less hectic, Arcjec signs off and reads Taz's messages, who very harshly urges Arcjec to update her so she knows that Arcjec is still alive. After decidedly not responding to Taz, Arcjec speaks with the multicolored snake consort again, who he accidentally names "Guy". Guy tells Arcjec to prepare a weapon, as he is bound to face monsters on his journey. Arcjec equips his scythe before taking his first steps on his journey on LOMAM. Meanwhile, Ellsee creates her own memo in regards to the game and her own knowledge of it; Arcjec is included in it along with all the other trolls. Having just left the terminal, Arcjec does not respond to or see the memo. As Arcjec follows the path from the terminal, he is once again greeted by Guy, who has been following Arcjec ever since he left the terminal. Before Arcjec can really question Guy on this, the two see a fire in the distance. When they run after it, they see a town being attacked by a powerful shape-shifting monster known as a Shifter. Two more colorful snakes like Guy named Lady and Person run towards Arcjec, pleading to him to stop the monster before it burns down the entire town. Overwhelmed, Arcjec freezes in place, spiraling over the sheer size of the beast, the flaming buildings, and the increasingly demanding snakes. As Person begins to become angrier with Arcjec, he is suddenly brought into a vision of a featureless white void and sees a younger version of himself: Kidjec. Kidjec calls out to Arcjec smiling exuberantly and arms open wide in a vision of piety. He tells Arcjec that it's okay to leave, and it isn't fair of the snakes to expect him to solve their problems, warning him that trying to help might just make all his painful experiences from the past happen all over again. Arcjec questions this, as running away and not acting is all he's ever done the past few sweeps and it has brought him little happiness. Arcjec worries that his choices have disappointed those who care about him, but admits that half the time he doesn't act, it's because he feels like he can't or that he isn't good enough. However, he desperately wishes he could do something for the people around him. Kidjec states that Arcjec's fears of inadequacy are justification enough to not act, and reiterates that the snakes' problems aren't any of his business or remotely his fault, and don't even matter because they aren't real. Arcjec questions why it does feel like his fault regardless, stating that he doesn't want to keep letting people down, and questions why Kidjec won't help him on this despite having always listened to him and done nothing and despite the fact that saving people was all they ever wanted growing up. Kidjec tells him that what they wanted out of life was impossible and that's why they gave up on those dreams. Kidjec tells Arcjec that acting will only ever make him miserable because he never knows when to stop. Kidjec tells Arcjec to just leave, tearing into Arcjec further, throwing abuse after abuse at him: he tells Arcjec that he's the reason everyone is miserable. Because Arcjec always tries to help and picks at other people's wounds, never letting them heal. He tells Arcjec that he's absolutely selfish and just desperate to go back to the way things were, and had he just stayed out of everyone's way and done nothing, everything could have turned out differently. He tells Arcjec that every single time he tries to help someone, all he does is hurt them. And that is precisely why he gets hurt back, questioning the point of bothering at all. Kidjec tells him to leave, again and again, repeatedly in a wave of rejection that sends Arcjec to his knees. Arcjec's nose bleeding profusely as a reminder of his encounter with Taz on his 6th wriggling day as he doubles over. Guy desperately calls out to Arcjec, which finally snaps Arcjec back into reality. Guy asks what was wrong, as Arcjec having apparently gone into a trance. Summoning his courage, Arcjec tells Guy that he's okay and he knows what he needs to do. Arcjec instructs Guy and the other snakes to gather and survivors and try to get to safety. Promising to protect the snakes, Arcjec prepares for battle. Personality and Traits Arcjec is largely defined by his depressive personality. Due to a severe lack of motivation, he largely spends his time in his room sitting at his computer and drinking soda. Arcjec has been known to go as far to perform mundane tasks in his imagination while failing to perform them in reality. Arcjec has a generally sardonic attitude towards most things in his life and his life in general and has little tolerance towards anything bothersome to him. He seems to be a little obsessed with how things work in "real life" and generally sees things from a rather bleak black and white perspective. This stunted emotional mindset masks a residual attachment Arcjec still has to his old life that can be seen in his many conversations with his friends, in which he paradoxically claims to be apathetic while also appearing heavily invested in the conversations, as evidenced by the amount of effort put into his responses. His general demeanor is, ironically, pointedly the opposite of what his typing quirk and screen name would imply, which can be inferred to be a result of Arcjec losing interest in the personality that he had facilitated when he was younger. He has love of Mountain Dew: Code Red that borders on addiction. This, along with his hatred of Lunchables, might be some sort of coping mechanism for his past which he simultaneously embraces and rejects in a painful, vindictive loop. Relationships Tazsia Poemme Arcjec and Taz have had a difficult relationship since the comic started. Stemming from their largely difficult past and supposedly unrealized romantic entanglements. There are many indications that their relationship was at one point abusive or unrequited -- mutually or otherwise -- however neither of these points have been directly confirmed. After some kind of relationship-ending incident, Arcjec has since vehemently avoided any interaction with Taz for over two sweeps while Taz has since desperately tried to reach out to Arcjec. The resulting fallout has clearly affected Arcjec deeply, with Arcjec having displayed a nearly fundamentally different personality and demeanor. Meanwhile, Taz appears to have felt abandoned or betrayed by Arcjec. When the two are forced to interact with one another during the events of the game, the two are constantly at each other's throats, barely being able to stay civil with one another, even for the sake of their mutual survival. Despite this, even though it is very slight, they did have a couple moments of levity and have been shown to complete their goals as a team rather efficiently all things considered. Ellsee Raines Not much is known about Arcjec and Ellsee's relationship, though Ellsee does seem to value him a great deal. One of her goals being to finally meet him and introduce herself personally, though she is never able to bolster up the courage to actually do it, even when she's already at his hive. Ellsee appears to care for Arcjec and worries for his wellbeing, even dropping all of her fear to run back to him in order to try and rescue him once she notices the meteor heading towards his hive. Despite this, Arcjec doesn't appear to know much about Ellsee at all; though he does seem to have an easier time speaking to her than the other trolls in his chat fodder. When Ellsee asks if she was likeable, Arcjec does actually try to give her advice (albeit poorly). It is known that Ellsee and Arcjec's ancestors had some sort of connection to each other, but it is not known how relevant their relationship is to Ellsee and Arcjec specifically. Laivan Ferroo Despite Arcjec's generally unfriendly demeanor, Arcjec and Laivan appear to have a mutually pleasant friendship, at least by Arcjec's standards. There are hints that there may be some sort of deeper connection between the two, however, given how Laivan acts towards Arcjec on Prospit and the fact that Arcjec's jeans match Laivan's blood color. The two, along with Calder used to play together as kids, but this appears to have ended as Arcjec grew distant and depressed. Calden Kerian Calder and Arcjec were once friends in their youth, but that doesn't appear to be the case anymore. Murrit Turkin Arcjec does not appear to be a big fan of Murrit. After reading through his memo he believes that the game is a prank set up by him and the others to make fun of him and later notes after collecting his personal game codes that he is a "slam jockey with more jolted RGB wires than common decency". And when telling Zehanpuryu about what he believes should have happened post-entry he admits that Murrit is a "friend" and that he is "actually much worse at explaining things than you or this game." Jentha Briati Arcjec has mentioned Jentha once during a conversation with Taz as they were working towards his entry. He seems to know enough about her to gauge what her interests are, but otherwise, there is no information on their relationship. Trivia * His trolltag 'animatedHumorist' is an ironic holdover from his past active interest in comic books and cartoons. 'Animated' refers to the way in which characters in this medium are portrayed, and 'Humorist' in how cartoons are often comedic in nature. * Arcjec is often compared to Karkat Vantas, due to their similarly cantankerous demeanors, penchants for tirades (although Karkat is clearly the more long-winded of the two), and their roles as "the first troll" in their respective comics. This has become a bit of a running joke between fans of the comic, who often ironically ship the two together. This was brought to a head for April Fools Day 2017 when there was a short four-page comic dedicated to the subject. * Arcjec's archetype is simply "main character" but is also paired with "self-insert". It has been noted that he was at one point a true self-insert of Austin in the very early stages of development in 2011. However, he claims that they do not "really share any similarities at this point, except for soda consumption". * Arcjec has a habit of typing out loud, or rather, speaking whatever he happens to be typing. * Arcjec's initials are AV, which are the same initials as Austin. * Arcjec's extended zodiac is Taurus * The names given to Arcjec on pages 3 and 4 of the comic are "hypocritical asshat" and "little shit" respectively. * Arcjec has a figurine of John Egbert in his room. Gallery kidjec_just_leave!!.png|Young Arcjec - "kidjec" arcjec_cosplay.png|"kidjec" - cosplay Arcjec_yelling.png|Arcjec pre-game wide.png|Arcjec in-game arcjec, dreamself.png|Arcjec - dreamself